Ubuntu Beach Villas by Reveal

- Really beautiful space and good facilities / rooms. Pool is lovely and youre literally on the beachfront which is very cool. - Location itself is actually pretty perfect in as much as youre still a cheap, 5 minute tuktuk down to all the bars and restaurants of Mirissa Beach, but far enough away that it still does feel private, remote and secure. Incidentally, there is an awesome beach bar / restaurant (Zephyr) literally next door that you can walk out along the beach to, as well as Lantern (the main hotel) which is a really nice walk along the beach to and has a really nice bar / restaurant / beachfront lounging area. - We also did a day trip to Galle (easy 60 min drive) and you can also very easily get to Weligama down the coast too. - Friendly service.

- Not so much a con but I just think it needs to be explained a little better by Reveal as to how all their properties fit together. Id suggest that they do this as standard with guests when checking in. - For example, with the exception of breakfast, whilst you can order from a food menu at the villas, they have to go and collect it from the hotel down the road (c. 250m away). The same goes for ordering a beer / cocktail - they dont have an alcohol licence at the villa, so you order a drink but they have to run down to another hotel to get it. This isnt necessarily a problem (and the food is delicious!!) just something we didnt feel was really explained or made obvious until we asked. Basically, I would class it more as a well-catered AirBnB - As above, service really was super friendly, helpful and enthusiastic throughout, but there were a few little bits that could elevate them to a real luxury property (e.g. we had to leave at 7am to catch our flight, but breakfast opens at 7. Considering the cost and that wed stayed 6 nights, we felt it would have maybe been a nice touch just to accommodate a slightly earlier opening e.g. 6.30am). Also, when we checked in we were basically left alone downstairs for 30 mins without much of a welcome as our room was prepared - again, not a huge issue by any means, but just played more into the feeling of it being a BnB / catered apartment. - Given the above, for what we paid in comparison to surrounding places / Sri Lanka generally, if honest we felt value for money wasnt quite as strong here.

We recently stayed at Ubuntu and after several issues, we checked out one night early. We therefore politely requested a refund of the night we did not stay in the property and asked not to pay the service charge that was added to the total given the service was inadequate. Ubuntu have responded with a generic email which even says insert hotel name which shows it was copied and pasted. They do not respond to our complaints or provide us with the requested refund of the night we did not stay. We arrived at Ubuntu and there was no check in. The security didnt say anything so we just found a sitting area and sat there for 10 minutes. We were then shown to our room but told the following - no restaurant/bar in the hotel/villa, even though the booking.com ad specifically says there is. The advert on booking.com also does not state that this is part of 4 villas in a 1km radius where you can use different facilities at each one. - Laundry - off site but back within 24 hours - Whale tour - $70 - At check in, Lakmal asked us whether we had any allergies - I said gluten which is a reason I went to this hotel as it says dietary friendly menu. I have celiac disease so cannot have food cooked with the same equipment as gluten. The manager, Lakmal, said that if we needed anything that we should WhatsApp him, including any drinks/food from the other hotels. We then ordered bottled water via WhatsApp at 12.30pm. At 12.58pm we ordered two cocktails. At 1.10pm both had not showed up. We asked how long it would be as we would just go to a shop and buy water if it would take this long and were told it was coming. Another 30 minutes went by and the Tom collins arrived with no water. The Tom collins were terrible and had no ice. The waters didnt come so again we had to chase and were told oh they are inside. This was over an hour after the water had been ordered. The manager didnt apologise for the delay until Later in the evening.

You have to wait a lot for the lady who checks in or checks out the customers because she has to come from another location of ubuntu villas. For the check out our tuk waited 30 minutes for us in front of the hotel. The lady said she did not know we were checking out even if we told the staff 3-4 times to call her. No enough tables to eat breakfast so they asked for a tuk tuk to get us to the other location, we waited too much for all of this. The staff there did not paid attention to us and did not even know what we were doing there even if the staff from the other location sent us there. The communication is not so good between the locations. They are not close. Also, almost all the staff is staying at the main location and the villas we stayed in are far and isolated of the rest. If you want to drink or eat something after 2-3PM, there is nobody around. There are a lot of dogs and this is nice until they fight near the pool and drink water from it. They even eat from your sun beds if you do not pay attention. Again, nobody was there to ask for some help. Sorry but for a 5-stars and the huge amount the money they ask compared to other hotels in sri lanka, this does not deserve the money. I have been to places cheaper that gave us more importance as guests than this place. I do not recommend.